The best, most FUN stairway trap or trick you've seen

[Gilladian]

I'm creating a wizard's tower. Up top, in a sealed treasury is a McGuffin the PCs want. They have to ascend a long, curving stair up three flights, with two landings on the way up. Door at each landing. How would a powerful wizard trap it? He wants to keep enemies out, but allow his own heir or follower to eventually return for the item. Design me a trap, or give me ideas of things for it to do?

oh, and the group is 5th lvlish. No wizard, but a big group w/ NPC sorcerer.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'd just install teleporting traps at the landings to return the party back to the bottom floor. Or if you want something a bit nastier: traps at the first landing and the top, both teleporting them to the second landing. Behind the door at the second landing, there's an iron golem guard (or a similarly strong construct). For an evil wizard's tower just replace the teleport trap with a disintegration trap...

 

[Eltab]

'Click plate' on second level causes lower stairs into rotate into a ramp. This should catch everybody except the Rogue scouting ahead. Falling damage upon reaching the bottom and crashing into the doorway (maybe half normal damage because they are actually sliding back down).

The Rogue watches the door open and something comes out to get him - maybe a wasp nest for variety, maybe a cantrip-level magi-tech device whose attack requires a Fort Save. No Reflex Saves because the wizard is expecting a sneaky Rogue.

Another 'click plate' at the top resets the stairs so everybody else can climb back up. Who is going to think about running away farther into the tower?

At least one door to this stairwell opens like a drawbridge - down on the adventurers' heads. They will be in cramped quarters and cannot just all jump out of the way. Is their Plate Armor guy a self-sacrificing type? He can use his armored self to create a safe space under the door if he volunteers to get smacked by it.

 

[Blue]

(The below is for after traps on earlier doors, preferably very magical since this isn't until later. Also, earlier in the tower is found a powerful magnet, perhaps as part of some other trap.)

A steel door at the top is in front of the steps. No magic can be detected on the door. (Note that Detect Magic is blocked by 1 inch of common metals, so the magic animating the construct beyond it won't be detected.) A rogue should be able to tell that the whole door is well crafted and extremely sturdy, especially the hinges.

When opened a load of 4" iron balls that are piled against it to pour our and down, washing the adventurers down the hard steps in a flood of iron balls. Ouch. Allow people to try to do things to get out of the way, dive into other doors, or tough out the balls so you get hit with them but don't also fall down the stairs. Which will have the added benefit of splitting the party.

Oh, if there are pressure activated traps on some stairs and the party has learned how to avoid them, this will set them off. One that does a nasty cloud spell that cuts of vision and is bad to go through would be great.

Then a construct attacks from in the room. BUT at the same time, all of the enchanted balls at the bottom also assemble themselves into a [level-appropriate] golem that comes up behind the distracted and split-up party for a battle on two fronts.

The way the heir would get around this is to attach the magnet to the door. The steel balls won't roll down so they won't activate, and they can walk right in after opening the now very heavy but well balanced door on the hinges reinforced to take the full weight.

 

[GMMichael]

Three words: animated banana peels.